155. During 2013-2014, sound progress was made under the social development subprogramme towards its objective of promoting inclusive and equitable sus-tainable human and social development in line with internationally and regionally agreed commitments and frameworks. Work was successfully accomplished on social issues through policy research, the genera-tion of knowledge products, training and capacity development, the provision of technical advisory ser-vices and the review of the implementation of interna-tionally agreed commitments on social development.
156. Through the subprogramme’s effective support for the implementation of the ICPD programme of action (ICPD Beyond 2014), considerable progress has been made by member States in implementing at least a policy, a programme, a strategy or a com-bination of the three instruments on population, youth, migration, gender, ageing and sexual, repro-ductive and adolescent health. The ICPD Beyond 2014 regional review revealed that 52 countries that participated in the review have implemented national policies, programmes and strategies explicitly address-ing the interaction between population and sustain-able development. Member States continued to call upon ECA to support them in developing strategies and reformulating their population policies.
157. During 2013, the subprogramme’s work on youth continued to focus on supporting the imple-mentation of the recommendations on the issue of youth employment, adopted by Assembly of the African Union at its seventeenth ordinary session, held in Malabo in June–July 2011.14 Under the sub-programme, policy research was launched in selected countries on the issue of the creative economy as a development pathway for youth employment. The main recommendation emanating from the report was for ECA to establish a creative economy initia-tive in Africa, which would help countries collect data and share experiences that could be used for informed policymaking and decision-making. Cabo Verde has taken the lead in embracing creative activities and has requested technical assistance from ECA in devel-oping the initiative further. The subprogramme has prioritized the issue of high youth unemployment in Africa through a number of analytical studies, projects and technical support to member States. It provided technical assistance to the Government of Senegal in developing a national action plan on youth employment. Further requests have come from the 35 member States that attended the experts meeting of the Committee on Human and Social Develop-ment. Owing to resource constraints, responses to the requests will be taken up on a first -come, first-served basis, starting with Malawi, Togo and Uganda.
158. The subprogramme has hosted young African professionals as interns and research assistants to undertake research and acquire skills in social devel-opment. These young African professionals are cur-rently working on employment, the cost of hunger, social protection, and urbanization issues.
159. In the area of international migration, technical support has been provided under the subprogramme to the Global Forum on Migration and Development processes, through policy research and the drafting of a statement as an input to the 2013 High-level Dia-logue on International Migration and Development.
160. African countries need continuously to invest in human capital. In this regard, the joint initiative of the African Union Commission, the World Food Pro-gramme and ECA on the cost of hunger in Africa has been used to engage stakeholders in addressing child nutrition as a priority for the continent. The meth-odological basis adopted in the studies carried out under this initiative could be applied across a range of poverty correlates, to provide a better understanding of the consequences of conditions such as illiteracy
14 The decision adopted by the Heads of State undertook to reduce youth unemployment by 2 per cent over a period of five years from 2011.
and unemployment on the intergenerational transfer of poverty. Studies have been completed in Egypt, Ethiopia, Swaziland and Uganda and are under way in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi and Rwanda. ECA will support the African Renewed Initiative on Stunt-ing Elimination (ARISE) proposed by the African Union Commission as a mechanism to help member States eliminate stunting.
161. Consultations were organized under the sub-programme with experts and stakeholders work-ing on urbanization in Africa to guide work by the Commission and to determine its niche in this area.
The resulting recommendations are designed to sup-port the statistical, social and economic dimensions of urbanization and identify the policy gaps in that domain. The role of ECA in bridging statistical and knowledge gaps is critical, especially at the regional level. This activity will bring coherence and ensure that urbanization issues are adequately mainstreamed in ECA social development policy activities.
162. Under the subprogramme, and in collaboration with IDEP, senior policymakers from member States are being trained, and a technical tool – the Africa social development index – developed, to respond to the challenges of exclusion and inequities in access to social services in member States. The index will pro-vide member States with an effective and practical mechanism for informing social development policy.
163. The present chapter provides an overview of the major issues and outcomes of the meetings of the Commission’s subsidiary bodies, including the inter-governmental committees of experts of the ECA sub-regional offices, which were held over the course of 2013 and in 2014 to date. It highlights the key issues and recommendations from the meetings of the sub-sidiary bodies which need to be brought to the atten-tion of the Commission for acatten-tion or informaatten-tion.
The chapter also includes a preview of meetings that were planned but had not taken place at the time of finalization of this report.
164. A review of the Commission’s intergovernmental machinery, undertaken in 2013 as part of the institu-tional reforms, resulted in the elimination of overlap-ping bodies and a more streamlined structure aligned with the new ECA programme orientation. Accord-ingly, the intergovernmental machinery of ECA now consists of organs focused on overall development issues at the subregional and regional levels and sev-eral expert level subsidiary bodies, as set out in the following sections.